IN QUEST OF INDIGENEITY, QUALITY, AND CREDIBILITY - IN ABORIGINAL POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION IN CANADA: PROBLEMATIC, CONTEXTS, AND POTENTIAL WAYS FORWARD

Oct 15, 2026

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Examines the complex challenges shaping Aboriginal post-secondary education in Canada, focusing on contested meanings of “Aboriginal,” the limits imposed by mainstream normative and institutional forces, and the credentialing agenda that constrains distinct models. Introduces the “parity paradox” requiring education grounded in Aboriginal cultures while also providing credible parity with mainstream content and quality. Highlights gaps in university capacity to teach and research Aboriginal knowledges, suggesting the need for substantial redesign of protocols and rules, including attention to the British Columbia case.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages35

Reading Time1 h 28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction: Defining the Overall Problematic

Conceptual frameworks and Western dominance

The parity paradox and competing purposes

Institutional constraints and credentialing agenda

Capacity to teach and research Aboriginal knowledges

Epistemic universes and legitimacy questions

IN QUEST OF INDIGENEITY, QUALITY, AND CREDIBILITY IN ABORIGINAL POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION IN CANADA: PROBLEMATIC, CONTEXTS, AND POTENTIAL WAYS FORWARD1 Jerald Paquette, University of Western Ontario, and Gerald Fallon, University of British Columbia Learning involves conceptual frameworks embedded in worldviews and values. The overarching problematic of Aboriginal post-secondary education is complex and multifaceted. Normative and institutional forces as well as the credentialing and certification agenda of post-secondary education limit the degree to which Aboriginal education at any level can simply go its own way. To what degree and in what ways should Aboriginal post-secondary education differ from mainstream post-secondary education—and can it? The parity paradox (Paquette & Fallon, 2010, p. xii) prevails in post-secondary as in lower-level education. Education that purports to be meaningfully “Aboriginal” must fulfill two seemingly opposing purposes: provide education that is grounded in Aboriginal cultures but also provide a reasonable degree of parity with the content and quality of mainstream education. In short, Aboriginal post-secondary education is situated at the nexus of colliding epistemic universes of hugely unequal power. What can and should be Aboriginal in Aboriginal post-secondary education? What is the Canadian experience to date in that respect—with particular focus on the British Columbia case example—and what can be learned from it? Introduction: Defining the Overall Problematic Learning is not a culture-neutral transfer of data. It involves conceptual frameworks embedded in worldviews and values. In many parts of the world, including Canada, Western education dominates teaching and learning and has replaced Indigenous/Aboriginal2 approaches to learning. Wherever Western colonialism has taken hold, including Africa, Asia, Latin 1 Inspiration and material for this paper are drawn from a longer paper presented at the 2013 Canadian Society for Studies in Education conference. 2 We use the terms interchangeably to indicate peoples who inhabited an area prior to European colonization. America, and North America, Western concepts and values play a primordial role in many areas of higher education. Nonetheless, efforts grow across the world to revitalise Aboriginal peoples’knowledges and systems of knowledge. Institutions of higher education have become important channels for this revitalization. Still, so far, Aboriginal impacts on the overall shape and direction of post-secondary education have been marginal. The overarching problematic of Aboriginal post-secondary education is complex and multifaceted. At the first level, it raises complex and conflicted issues about what is currently and, more to the point, what ought to be“Aboriginal” in Aboriginal post-secondary education, why, and on whose terms. To what degree and in what ways should Aboriginal post-secondary education mirror mainstream post-secondary programming, and where and how should it differ? Powerful normative and institutional forces, of course, limit the degree to which aboriginal education at any level can simply go its own way. The credentialing and certification agenda of post-secondary education militates strongly against a completely separate and different institutional form and structure or radically different content for Aboriginal post-secondary education. On the other hand, Aboriginal post-secondary education which is solely a mirror image of mainstream post-secondary education can hardly lay claim to being an authentically Aboriginal instantiation of post-secondary education or to leading toward renewal of Aboriginal ontologies and epistemologies which are different from “the dualist ontologies of Euro-modernity in that they are not built on the divides between nature and culture, us and them, and individual and community”(Escobar, 2010, p. 4) . An important problem confronting post-secondary ins

FAQs

What is the “parity paradox” in Aboriginal post-secondary education?

It describes the requirement that Aboriginal education must be grounded in Aboriginal cultures while also providing a reasonable degree of parity in content and quality with mainstream education, even though these purposes initially seem opposed.

Why do mainstream norms and credentialing affect Aboriginal post-secondary education?

Normative and institutional forces, along with the credentialing and certification agenda of post-secondary education, limit how far Aboriginal education at any level can operate independently or adopt radically different structures and content.

What problem do Canadian post-secondary institutions face when trying to indigenize curricula?

Even when institutions wish to indigenize, they are often not adequately equipped to teach and perform research involving Aboriginal knowledge and sciences because education and research staff are typically trained in mainstream epistemological traditions.

Oct 15, 2026

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